Greaves stops 39, Blue Jackets rally past Sabres to avoid elimination

COLUMBUS -- Jet Greaves made 39 saves for the Columbus Blue Jackets, who rallied for a 3-2 win against the Buffalo Sabres at Nationwide Arena on Thursday.

Greaves had been emergency recalled from Cleveland of the American Hockey League after Elvis Merzlikins left practice Thursday morning with an undisclosed injury.

Columbus, which would have been eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention with a regulation loss, pulled to within six points of the Montreal Canadiens for the second wild card from the Eastern Conference. Each team has four games remaining.

Boone Jenner scored the go-ahead goal early in the third period, and Zach Aston-Reese also scored for the Blue Jackets (36-33-9), who have won two in a row.

“The spot we're in, we need these points,” Jenner said. “We talked about it before the third. No matter what happened that first 40, we had to go out and win a period. I liked our resiliency to do that. We just stuck to it, try to win a shift and go on to the next.”

Rasmus Dahlin had a goal and an assist, and JJ Peterka also scored for the Sabres (35-37-6), who had won five straight and eight of nine. James Reimer made 27 saves.

“I thought it was a winnable game; we had our chances,” Dahlin said. “They scored one more goal than us. That's how it feels now, after we created a lot, and I think we could have scored a couple more.”

Greaves allowed Columbus to come back by stopping all 18 shots he faced in the second period and all 15 in the third.

“We hung him out to dry a little bit in the first, but he definitely shut the door and kept us in there and made us a lot of big saves as the game went on,” Blue Jackets forward James van Riemsdyk said.

Greaves made 19 saves in a 4-3 home win against Grand Rapids on Wednesday. He got the call to report to Columbus around midday Thursday and made the approximately two hour drive south to Columbus.

“Once you're in the game you kind of settle in and it's just about competing and trying to win hockey games,” Greaves said. “Was fun to be out there and the guys did a great job and helped me get into the game. They did a great job the whole night.”

Peterka gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead at 11:54 of the first period, scoring his 25th goal of the season when his wrist shot from the left circle went in off the crossbar.

Dahlin extended it to 2-0 at 14:39 after a setup in front by Zach Benson. Dahlin was low in the left circle and drew the puck back to create space between him and Dante Fabbro before scoring on a wrist shot.

Van Riemsdyk cut it to 2-1 at 19:51, scoring on a breakaway with a backhand through Reimer’s pads. It ended a 14-game goal drought dating back to Feb. 27 against the Detroit Red Wings.

“Obviously, getting one late in the period like that, I don’t think we were executing as well as we could have been for a good portion of the game, but it kind of kept it within striking distance,” van Riemsdyk said. “Again, we've shown we're a team that'll just keep playing until the very end and obviously we're able to do what we needed to do tonight to stay alive.”

Aston-Reese tied it 2-2 at 4:00 of the third period, scoring glove side on a wrist shot from the point.

Jenner then gave Columbus a 3-2 lead with a power-play goal at 6:42, knocking in the rebound of Kirill Marchenko’s shot near the right post.

“In the second period we had all kinds of opportunities to lengthen the lead, but didn't take advantage of it and third period we brought a couple of pucks back,” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. “We didn't get puck out on both goals, and it ended up costing us in both situations.”

NOTES: Columbus defenseman Zach Werenski had an assist for his 76th point (20 goals, 56 assists), tying Ray Whitney (2002-03) for the fourth-most by a Blue Jackets player in a single season. … Columbus defenseman Jake Christiansen left the game at 12:42 of the first period with an upper-body injury. Blue Jackets coach Dean Evason did not have an update on him or Merzlikins.